Codename The Wanderer
by Cuz I'm The Wanderer
Summary: What did Deacon really mean when he told her he's always been in her corner? This will follow a Fallout 4 plot line but will focus on Deacon and Athena's (Sole Survivor) relationship unfolding. I'll be taking some liberties when it comes to dialogue and plot holes. PTSD, anxiety, paranoia mentioned. Typical game violence, swearing, chem use. Female Sole Survivor x Deacon.
1. Prologue

_"What's-" Athena gasps- "happening?"_

 _Her eyelids peel open to reveal blurry colors. She flinches as her ears pop. All she can hear is distorted whispering in the background. Athena's head throbs. It feels like she's waking up from a vividly surreal dream._

 _Suddenly, the memories of the bombs falling and her family entering Vault 111 flood her head. Her lips part but only a coughing fit comes out._

 _Athena clears her throat. "Nate, are you . . . okay?"_

 _She forces her sight to focus, allowing her to see two people: one wearing a full body chemist suit and another dressed in tattered leather clothing._

 _"Hey," she softly calls out._

 _They walk over to Nate's pod and open it. Athena sighs in relief of seeing her husband safe with their baby in hand. Her smile is quickly erased from her face as she witnesses the person trying to rip Shaun out of Nate's arms._

 _"No, stop that, you'll scare Shaun!" Athena shouts as she slaps the door keeping her from her family._

 _"Let the boy go. I'm only going to tell you once!" He points his gun at Nate._

 _Eyes wide with terror, Athena uses all of her strength to bang on the glass. "Wait, please, don't shoot! Please!" She urges._

 _A loud bang echoes inside the vault. The sound of a bullet piercing skin lingers only to be rivaled by Shaun's cries. Not being able to process what she witnessed, Athena's body trembles and her eyes blink repeatedly._

 _"Oh God," she mutters under her heavy breathing._

 _"God damn it, get the kid out of here and let's go. . ." The man turns around to face Athena._

 _She glares at him with quivering lips and furrowed eyebrows. A mix of terror and anger weighs on her shoulders._

 _The man smirks in response and simply states, "At least we still have a backup."_

 _"Let me out, you damn coward! Let me out!" She snarls as she repeatedly strikes the glass in front of her._

 _"Cryogenic sequence reinitialized."_

 _"Come back here! Give me back my so-"_

 _Athena's muscles rapidly become tense and, once again, she's frozen in time._


	2. Chasing Ghosts

"I think this is the place in my records?"

Deacon takes out a battered clipboard from his satchel and traces the map route drawn sloppily on the paper with his index finger. At realizing that he is indeed right on track, he nods contently and puts away the clipboard. Deacon has been searching for this location for a while now, convinced it to possess a clue regarding the Institute's whereabouts.

He walks around the skeletons scattered across the dirt and up the trail. Once he reaches the rather shallow peak, he stands over the vault elevator. "Found it! Now, how to get in?" After looking around, he strolls inside a small trailer, finding a possible switch for the vault's door. "Excuse me," he comments as he gently pushes away a skeleton from the large button and proceeds to push it down. The sound of gears turning booms as the huge metal doors part.

"Oh shit." Deacon jogs towards the descending elevator and jumps inside. Before the elevator reaches the bottom, he activates a stealth boy, becoming seemingly invisible. The gate creaks as it gradually opens, revealing the inside of Vault 111. Deacon begins to creep inwards while crouching. He sneaks past a few radroaches before standing in front of a closed door and an open room. He eyes both entrances until curiosity wins him over and he decides on opening the closed door.

"Behind curtain number one is," he whispers excitedly and immediately begins to pout once he discovers, "another curtain. . ."

The door swooshes up after he presses its button. Deacon's foot falters to take a step inside after he looks up at the room's content.

"Holy shit. . ." He mumbles under his breath while lowering his sunglasses.

He knew the vault was once a cryogenic chamber used for unethical experimentation by the U.S.A.'s old government; he had no idea, however, that there were still people frozen after all these years.

After walking further into the chilling room and looking at each person's face, he notices two in particular that stand out; a woman who seems to be the only one still breathing and a man who's cause of death was a bullet to the head. Due to the expression of anger and terror plastered onto her face, she could have witnessed his death. The rest of the victims look like they passed away relatively peacefully.

Deacon remembers seeing a terminal from the corner of his eye when he first entered and heads towards it silently. He activates the terminal and scans through it, discovering that someone over-road the system in order to terminate life support. Everyone's but the woman he saw in Pod C7 that is. His thoughts quickly become a whirlwind of questions. Questions that she might be able to answer if he unfreezes her.

He searches for her name. Mr. and Mrs. Rodriguez. They were married. She had to witness the murder of her significant other. His heart aches at the thought of his past. With a deep breath in and out, he looks down at the terminal. It is then he realizes something; an infant is supposed to be in the same pod as Natanael.

He fast walks towards Pod C6 and peers in through the glass. Shaun's not there. Deacon rubs the bridge of his nose and grunts, trying to bottle up his frustration. "What could the Institute possibly want with a kid?" He turns to face Athena, "And what were their plans for you? Why did they never come back for you?" He sighs exasperatedly and slides his back down the wall. The thought of releasing this confused, unfortunate woman onto the Wasteland and having to explain the kidnapping of her child and death of her husband makes Deacon cringe. He takes off his sunglasses in order to rub his tired eyes and wastes no time on putting them back in place.

"I should head out and think this through."

Deacon sneaks out the vault and continues down the trail into the wreckage of what was once Sanctuary Hills. He instinctively crouches down and reaches into his satchel for a stealthboy at the sound of something approaching him. It's a Mister Handy. The machine seems to be sweeping the cracked concrete road as it hums a cheery tune. Deacon sneaks behind the Mister Handy and enters a rusty house. He picks up a chair and lugs it out onto the top of a nearby hill. Still having some juice left in his stealthboy, he decides to sneak into another house and take a little table plus an old, torn up blanket.

With a blanket on his lap, Deacon sits down and puts his feet on top of the table. He takes out an old document and writes over its faded words. No more than three words are printed down before he starts to scribble them out.

"How the hell am I supposed to write a report about this?" he snorts.

Deacon takes off his hat and yawns. "What a day."

He looks up to see the sun's light fading, creating shadows around the broken down buildings.

"I guess I'll just figure it out tomorrow."


	3. Escaping Vault 111

As her icy prison begins to thaw, a shiver travels through Athena's body and shakes her violently. Feeling as if she is running out of breath, her neck snaps back, and she desperately gasps for air. After taking a deep breath in, her head slumps between her shoulders and her hands lean on the pod's cold door for support.

"Come back, you bastard," she manages to say between muffled coughs.

"Critical failure in cryogenic array. All vault residents must vacate immediately," the Vault-Tech computer announces.

"What? . . . Let me out," she demands with a raspy voice and weakly hits the door.

To her surprise, it begins to open causing her to fall down. She reacts fast enough to hit the floor with her knees and the palms of her hands instead of her face.

"Mierda*," she winces.

Her entire body feels like it's cramping but, with wobbly legs, she pushes herself to stand up. What she sees in front of her causes her golden brown eyes to quiver.

"Nate!" she weeps and begins to frantically pull on his pod's door.

"How the hell do I open this damn thing?" She angrily murmurs but soon notices a nearby switch and activates it.

Athena stands back, nervously rubbing her hands together as the door slowly opens, revealing Nate's frosted corpse.

"Natanael, mi amor*," she sobs as her trembling hand reaches out and caresses his painfully cold cheek. "I-I'm sorry, God, I'm so sorry," she cries.

Wiping the tears away from her face, Athena exercises a breathing technique Nate taught her to use against incoming panic attacks. After a minute or two, she regains a bit of her composure. With glazed eyes, she looks up at her passed away husband and bites her lip.

"Fuck, I couldn't do anything but sit back and watch!" She punches the cryo pod with all of her strength, causing her knuckles to bruise.

"I'll find who did this and I'll get our baby back, even if it's the last thing I do," she declares as she takes off his wedding ring and lightly kisses his hand before closing the pod.

"But first, I need to get the hell out of this place before I develop hyperthermia."

While being careful not to slip on the damp floor, she rushes towards the room's exit and accesses a corridor. She opens one of the doors to her right and immediately regrets it.

"Oh God," she winces at the sight of more of her friends and acquaintances frozen to death.

Athena stumbles out of the room and hurries towards the door marked as "exit zone" only to be disappointed by the Vault-Tec computer's announcement.

"Malfunction in emergency exit door override, please contact your Vault-Tec maintenance representative for service."

Stubbornly, she continues to pull on the metal while growling, "Come on, come on."

Athena gives up and heads towards the door to her left. Thankfully, it opens. As she walks down a few stairs a thought pops into her head that causes her to feel panicked; is she the only person alive in the vault- in the country? Surely there must be others; she can't be the only one that managed to escape the bombs' wrath . . . right?

Reaching the end of the staircase, she is about to call out for any survivors but is left mute by the sight of a giant bug on the window to the next room. Skeptically, she turns around, takes a deep breath in and out, and turns back to be faced with the same dog sized cockroach.

"This has to be a hallucination. . ."

Slowly, she walks towards the radroach and jumps back when it falls off the glass.

"Jesus Christ, this can't be happening," she whispers and combs her fingers through her thick, black hair.

As soon as she looks down, she notices a police baton on top of a metal crate and swipes it for self-defence. She sneaks down the room and halts when she spots a small office.

"A terminal!" She loudly whispers.

Without hesitation, Athena swirls the chair towards her and takes a seat in front of the dusty device. After carefully reading every entry, she is left speechless in outrage and disgust. How could Vault-Tec do something so inhuman? She covers her face with both of her hands and practices her breathing technique once more.

In her head, she tries to figure out how long it has been since she was initially frozen. If they didn't receive the all clear from Vault-Tec, the overseer was supposed to evacuate the Vault after 180 days making her consider that that's how much time has passed. However, in the logs, it was stated that the all clear never arrived and panic arose. Surely they all killed each other long ago. Even if they did all leave, why would they take Shaun away and kill everyone but her when they were given specific orders not to disturb any of the test subjects?

She groans loudly into her hands and moves her hair out of her face. From the corner of her eye, she sees a stimpak next to the terminal and picks it up. Athena convinces herself that her priority should be to collect anything she deems as useful and head back home. She knows the chances of there being a home to go back to are slim, but she can't stay in the Vault; not after all the terrible things that have happened there.

After raiding the small office and finding nothing but coffee mugs and burnt out cigarettes, she continues forward and moves through a gloomy hallway. The quiet of the Vault along with its unsettling history makes traveling through it a disturbing experience.

Once she reaches the next room, she spots a giant insect crawling towards her. Although the radroach faces her, it doesn't seem to feel her presence since it turns around and creeps into the Vault's cafeteria. Observing it carefully, Athena tip toes towards it, testing how close she can get before it makes note of her.

After managing to get about four feet close to it, Athena swings her weapon as hard as she can on its back and pokes it with the baton to make sure it's dead. She stares at the mutated created for a couple of seconds and wonders what other monstrosities are waiting for her outside the Vault. Deciding there is no time to be pessimistic, she stands up and searches the cafeteria and bedding area. She is delighted to find a video game tape and takes it with the hope of one day giving it to Shaun.

She exits the room only to enter another with two big generators in the center. An unfortunate radroach scurries too close and is immediately zapped to death, teaching Athena to keep her distance. Staying close to the walls, she edges over to an unexpecting irritated bug and knocks it out with a swing.

"Jesus, how many of you are there?" She sighs.

Unbeknownst to her, there was another one nearby that heard her voice and proceeded to gnaw on her boot.

"Aah! Too many," she remarks while crushing the pest between her boot and the wall with a kick.

"Great, now my boot has cockroach intestines all over it. . ." she complains.

Soon after she turns around, her expression turns bleak at the sight of a skeleton sprawled on the steel floor.

"They really are dead. . . I wonder if it's due to the insects or each other," she speaks to herself.

After going up a flight of stairs and killing two more radroaches, she successfully arrives at the Overseer's headquarters.

"Finally a gun, oh, and stimpaks," she says feeling somewhat relieved and makes sure the gun is fully loaded before equipping it.

Athena collects all the ammo in the room before accessing the terminal. With furrowed eyebrows, she reads everything on it and proceeds to open the evacuation tunnel. She glares at the Overseer's remains, not sure whether to be angry or feel sorry for them, before sneaking towards the tunnel.

First, she examines the interior and counts the enemies inside. Next, with extreme precision, she fires at all of her insect foes from a safe distance before they manage to reach her.

At long last, Athena reaches the Vault's main entrance after passing a short hallway. She notices another radroach right in front of her, shoots it, and excitedly runs towards the door's control panel.

"Fuck!"

A radroach lunges at her and rips a thin strand off of her Vault suit. She slaps it away and crushes it with the baton. Unaware of the scratch it left on her skin, Athena proceeds to push a big red button that buzzes in response.

"Pip-Boy interface required to activate Vault door cycling sequence. Have a nice day," it informs.

"Pip-Boy? Where am I going to- oh," she observes that the skeleton underneath her has a Pip-Boy attached to its arm.

Feeling rather lucky, Athena picks up the device, folds up her sleeve, and attaches it to her wrist. The fact that the biometric seal didn't cause much pain or discomfort surprises her. She wipes away the dust from the screen and allows it to start up before connecting it to the Vault's control panel. Holding her breath, she pushes the button and is hit by a wave of relief when the Vault's computer confirms the door's removal.

Quickly, she looks around the room for anything else of value and dashes out the door after collecting a bit of ammo. The elevator arrives and she doesn't hesitate to jump on its platform. Athena takes a deep breath in and gently lets it escape her lips. Hopefully, she won't be killed by an excessive amount of radiation as soon as she the elevator reaches the top.

"Enjoy your return to the surface and thank you for choosing Vault-Tec."

As soon as the elevator's doors part, she is greeted by the sun's warm embrace. Dazzled, her bright eyes widen and, although the sunlight causes them to water, she can't allow herself to look away. Over the hill, she has a clear view of what was once her hometown. Most of the buildings' infrastructure has collapsed while the ones that are still standing are in urgent need of repair. As soon as she lays her eyes upon her crumbling house, she can't help but dash towards it as if her life depends on it.

Tears fly through the wind as Athena runs down the bumpy hill. The air she breathes in tastes bitter and makes her chest feel heavy. She jumps over numerous skeletons laying between her path when her body abruptly freezes.

All of a sudden, she can hear Shaun crying in the distance. A memory begins to play out before her as if she were watching a movie.

"Leave the bags!" A woman cries.

"Nate?" Athena calls as she runs towards the vault.

"I'm right here! Don't stop running," Nate reassures her as he follows closely behind with Shuan in his arms.

Around her, she witnesses her neighbors and close friends struggling to get up the hill. A lone child is desperately searching for his lost pet while a young couple clings onto one another for comfort.

The flashback fades away, leaving Athena feeling disoriented and nauseous. She wipes away the remaining tears on her cheeks and continues towards her home. She's so close, she can't afford to break down now.


End file.
